Wed, Jan 14, 2015 page14

• Reports signal bright spots in dark era for PC sector

  • AP, SAN FRANCISCO, California
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  Despite some glimmers of recovery, the PC industry is still struggling with declining sales, according to two market reports issued on Monday showing that global PC shipments last year fell for the third year in a row.

  Research firm Gartner Inc estimates that shipments increased by just 1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year.

  Using different methods, a second firm calculated that shipments fell 2.4 percent in the fourth quarter, but that result is not as bad as the 4.8 percent decline that International Data Corp researchers had forecast for the period.

  “There is improvement in demand,” senior IDC researcher Jay Chou said, although he added that last year was “still another difficult year” for the PC industry.

  Sales did improve for several of the world’s biggest computer manufacturers, including Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc, which gained market share from smaller manufacturers in the last quarter.

  Lenovo remains the world’s leading PC seller, but HP showed sizable gains, especially in the US, while Apple Inc also increased its overall sales, although it is not a leading seller outside the US and other Western markets.

  Consumers have been buying fewer PCs in recent years because they are increasingly interested in alternatives such as smartphones and tablets,.

  Yet the steep decline in PC sales over recent years may be leveling off, as computer makers introduce new models that are both lightweight and low-cost, while still capable of performing more functions than tablets.

  In addition, analysts say tablet sales are slumping, since the market has become saturated and an increasing number of consumers find them less useful than PCs.

  IDC estimates that computer makers shipped more than 308.6 million PCs last year, or about 2.1 percent less than the previous year. That is a smaller decline than the 9.8 percent drop that it measured in 2013, the research firm said, adding that shipments peaked at 363.8 million in 2011.

  Those estimates track roughly in parallel with the figures given by Gartner, which said PC manufacturers shipped about 315.9 million units last year, or just 0.2 percent less than the previous year. Gartner said shipments also fell in the previous two years.

  While IDC is projecting another sales decline this year, while Gartner is forecasting a return to growth, although only by about 1 percent.

  Yet even as the industry recovers, “it’s not going to be the double-digit growth that we’ve seen in the past,” Mikako Kitagawa of Gartner said.

  IDC said last year’s sales were helped by the introduction of new computer models and some aggressive promotional campaigns.

  However, Chou also said there are signs that some distributors ordered extra inventory in recent months because thety are expecting prices to go up. That could mean shipments will slow in the coming months.

  While the reports indicate how the PC industry is doing, more details may emerge in coming weeks, when HP, Intel and other leading industry players issue financial reports for last quarter.

  Some computer manufacturers are expecting to get a boost later this year when Microsoft Corp introduces a new version of its Windows operating software, which it promises will be easier to use than the last version.

  However, Chou said software upgrades no longer seem to influence sales as much as they used to.
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